Atonement
by TheFlyingPotato64
Summary: Upon his death at the hands of Gohan, Cell is told by King Yemma that Hell is not enough to pay for his crimes, so Cell is stripped of his ki abilities and sent back to the mid-19th century, where he must forcibly assimilate himself to an extremely corrupt society as his body slowly changes into a human-the very creatures he once devoured. PLEASE R&R!


**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN DBZ.**

The carpet was my least favorite color of red. Not because its cheapness despite King Yemma's obvious wealth, but because its smelled like mold. I hate mold. I hated everything about mold. I came across mold every now and then, in my feasts on the cities. I wonder how Yemma even keeps up with it with the amount of traffic that comes through here.

"CELL! YOU ARE NOW TO PAY FOR YOUR CRIMES AGAINST THE UNIVERSE AND THE HUMAN RACE AS A WHOLE!" Yemma's voice finally caught my attention.

"Oh, you. I forgot. I was distracted by the ugly-ass rug."

"YOUR SMUGNESS WON'T DO YOU MUCH GOOD FOR HERE ON IN,"

"Well, I believe perfection is a better term." I smirked.

"CELL! LISTEN HARD, AND LISTEN GOOD!" Yemma smacked his fist, leaning forward towards me. He made exact eye contact. His irises met mine. "We've designed a new punishment for you. What you've done is too inexcusable, even for Hell itself."

I shrugged, "Bring it then; there's nothing that I, the perfect warrior, cannot handle."

"I thought that'd be your reaction," Yemma sighed, lying back onto his office chair, "You will be stripped of your ki abilities immediately."

"Wh-What?!" _Was that even possible?! _"If you could do that, why didn't you stop Freiza? Hell, why didn't you stop me?" I asked.

"Well, I'm stopping you now."

"You're a bit late, I'm already dead, if you haven't noticed."

"Well, then, here, have a free trinket of my gratitude."

"For what?" I asked, taking it. The ring refused to come off. I attempted to power-up, but for some reason I couldn't harness the power given by the brilliant Gero and the cells of the greatest warriors to walk the face of that rock called Earth.

"WHAT'S THE MEANING OF THIS!? HOW DARE YOU MAKE A MOCKERY OF ME!"

"This ring will be on you for eighteen months. During those eighteen months, you will slowly turn into a human and begin to lose recollection of who you were." Yemma smirked.

"A h-human!? Are you—what!? HOW!?" Yemma struck his hammer down…

_A black void opened beneath me... _

The room was more of a cupboard than a living quarters. It had moldy, timber flooring and brick walls without any wallpaper or paint. There was leakage in the piping. The structure was made without any use of metal; simply wood and brick. Nothing short of another village. The bed, however, was soft; filled with feathers. The cotton smooth to the very first touch. An elderly human face glanced back at me. It was a female human, and she was weak. Her power level was almost nonexistent. She was dressed differently than the humans on Earth did; she was fully clothed in a patched-up, frilly reddish brown dress. Her hair was long and grey, pulled back in a headdress. Her eyes were brown. She was pale, but filth covered both her dress and skin—the very little that she let show. The dress came down to the ankles, to the wrists on the arms and it was high-collared towards the neck. She wore an apron covered with stains. She also wore a headdress that covered most of her hair with the exception of her roots.

"You're awake! _(Ты очнулся!)_" She smiled and put the candlestick by the wood table next to my bed. She then returned back to hovering over me.

What the Hell did this lady just say? I never had language issues on Earth because, well one, humans that interacted with me didn't last long enough to cause an issue, and two, if I did, I probably didn't care to notice. I shouted, "What are you are saying, human-woman!?"

"Do you not speak Russian? (_Вы не говорите на русском?_)" She asked. I lifted my torso up and shook her, "WHAT LANGUAGE ARE YOU SPEAKING!?" She still looked at me, terrified-which I am quite used to-I've never met a human that wasn't terrified of me. I then decided that I would revert to hand motions. I put my fingers to my mouth and made a nonverbal talking motion. She nodded, and said,

"Russian (_русский_)," She answered. She then wrote it down onto a small notebook in more familiar alphabet that I had come across: RUSSIAN.

"Russian?" I asked.

"Yes (_да_),"

I lied back down and realized the situation I was in; I could no longer control ki—though I could _sense _it still-I was stuck in a country in which I had no knowledge of the culture, the climate, the people, the language-not even the alphabet it was in-and I was at the mercy of some weak, elderly human woman. I punched the wall and a picture of a gold-surrounded woman with a child who both had circles above their heads came crashing down. The glass protector cracked. The woman panicked, her eyes filled with tears, and whispered something somber to a set of beads. She grabbed it quickly and left the room, but not before locking it. She returned with a few books and some tea. She pointed at herself, "Praskovya."

I sighed, glancing at the tea she made for when I awoke, "Cell."

Her eyes opened-another expression I'm used to when dealing with humans-but unlike the other times, she then turned to show a modest, warm smile,

"What a unique name (_Какое уникальное имя..._)," A bang came to the door. A man in an overcoat with a cigarette in his hand leaned against the doorframe. He had a few badges on his coat. He was older, and like Praskovya, had no significant power. To be fair, his power level was high among humans, but I've fought Trunks, Vegeta, Goku and Gohan—he was nothing to them.

"May I help you? _(Могу я вам помочь?)_" Praskovya turned her attention to him. She closed the door slightly and whispered to his ear. She peered back at me and then back at him. They began talking casually in this strange tongue. I couldn't catch anything that might seem somewhat familiar. Though the man left peacefully.

Praskovya returned to my side with the books and opened to the page entitled: CYRILLIC ALPHABET. A, Б, В, Г, Д, E, Ж, З, И, Й, К, Л, M, H, O, П, P, C, T, У, Ф, X, Ц, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ь, Ю, Я. She handed me the notebook and a pen. I could imply that she wanted me to learn this tongue; but to honest, I didn't see a reason until I remembered my situation. Reluctantly, I picked up the pen and began tracing the symbols. Some were the same as the alphabet I've seen before-some were completely foreign to me. I used Frieza's DNA to search if there were any planets that this tongue was common, but alas, there were none.

"Is this Earth?" I tried Goku's DNA; and finally, I found some answers. He had flown over this area before, but never landed in it. So this was Earth, but a different version of Earth.

The woman glanced back at me, "Where are you from? (_А вы откуда?_)" She knew I couldn't speak their tongue, why bother asking? She then wrote it down on the notebook in Cyrillic.

I used to the alphabet guide to translate it: Where are you from? - A harmless question, I suppose.

I don't look anything like a human, nor do I speak their language.

I pondered this for a moment, and then used the guide to write: Laboratory (_лаборатория_). She glanced at this, and then back at me, rather confused.

"...Laboratory? I do not know of a town called Laboratory (_лаборатория? Я не знаю городе называют лабораторным_)," Praskovya glanced at my answer,

"You lived in Siberia? _(Вы жили в Сибири?)_" I glanced back at her and nodded. I wasn't sure what I was nodding to, but it'd shut her up at the very least.

She left and peered back at me, "Sleep well (_Спи хорошо_),"

I continued to read through the stupid book and memorized some of the common phrases, the alphabet, the vocabulary. Praskovya helped me quite often, but she tended to say to me that she had to leave to tend to some duties concerning work. Eventually I found out where I was; a city called St Petersburg in a snowy land called Russia. Apparently in this version of Earth, Russia is just one country out of many, where humankind is divided by geographical locations. Also, I noted that this version of Earth is rather…backwards. When I last dealt with humans, they had flying cars; but here they were still walking on foot or riding horse-drawn carriages. They rarely even have bicycles. Russia had about three to four months of tolerable weather—May through September. Then sometime around October it would become a frigid nightmare with about five hours of daylight at most. Praskovya was a landlady of an apartment building, and she found me on her way to pick up some cleaning supplies in a snowdrift.

Days passed without incident; there was little use in getting out of the bed. I couldn't destroy the place and to be honest-what the Hell was there to even destroy? A bunch of drunkards, their puke in half-frozen rivers under the bridges floating like lily-pads, prostitutes, dog-wolves and temperatures so cold Frieza would be wearing an overcoat. So I laid in bed, each night a great pain of my inner organs reorganizing themselves came to me. It was like glass shredding my perfect interior. My screams of agony I'm sure could be heard throughout the apartment complex. I'm sure people on the streets could hear them, too. Unlike the last time I was on Earth, there was far less noise pollution in the cities and the entire complex was made of wood and brick. So if someone was screaming in pain like I did at that moment it could carry far.

"KAMI! GERO! PRASKOVYA! HELP!" Purple blood split from lips. I clenched my fist to ease the pain and hunched over, clutching my middle torso. Immediately, I heard footsteps coming up wooden stairs. Praskovya came up with a tin bucket for me to puke in. She wet a cotton cloth and placed it over my forehead after laying me down.

"Sleep, sleep, _(спать, спать,_)" Praskovya sighed, "Do you need water or tea? (_Ли Вы нужна вода или чай?_)"

Trying to grasp her Russian, "No. (_Нет_)" I spouted out. Praskovya sighed once more, took the tin bucket, opened the door and threw it out the window. She casually set it back down beside me in case I needed to use it again without even the thought of washing it. In the Earth I knew from my feasts upon the human race, they had sewage systems. They didn't throw puke out a window like that. If they did, I'd question whether or not I really wanted their energy in my body.

"What year is it? _(Какой сейчас год?)_" I muttered. Praskovya paused, "1866." My eyes opened immediately; Earth's time was at least 150 years later than that.

"1866? WHAT!? THAT CANNOT BE RIGHT! IT...explains a lot, actually-KAMI! WHY?!" I cringed and hunched over.

Praskovya turned to me, "Cell?"

"Yes? (_Да_)"

"Are you human? (_Вы человек?_)"

"No. (Нет)"

"Well, I've seen worse. _(Ну что ж, я видел хуже.)_" Praskovya answered simply. My eyes opened even further,

"What? Nothing to say to that? Not going to ask who I am? (_Что? Нечего сказать по этому поводу? Не собираетесь спросить, кто я?_)" I asked.

"I don't care as long as you get well to pay rent. (_Меня не волнует, до тех порпоскольку вы получаете хорошо и платить арендную плату._)" She answered.

"You do not who I am...what I've done. (_Вы не знаете, что я ... что я сделал_.)" I muttered.

Praskovya leaned forward, smiling, "Tell me. (_Скажи мне_)"

I turned over and glanced at the leaking ceiling. How was I going to explain who I was? What I was? What I've done? How I did it?

"I come from the future. (_Я родом из будущего_.) I am a machine, made of cells of the most powerful warriors the world has ever known. (_Я машина, созданной из ячеек самых мощных воинов которую когда-либо знал мир._)"

"Machine? (_машина?_)" Praskovya smirked and shut the door, "Machine…(_машина…_),"

She told back and tried to contemplate it, "But you were vomiting blood (_Но ты была рвота с кровью_)." She put her hand to forehead, "You sweat (_Вы потеете_)—Sweet Mary, your fever! _(Сладкая Мария, ваша лихорадка!)_" She glanced up at the painting of the woman and a baby. She began to sweat and hasten, "You need to eat something! (_Вы должны съесть что-то!_)"

She returned with a rag that she put on my forehead and cold soup made with beets, cabbage, dill and meat that I could tell had been poorly preserved. The water in the soup itself was tainted. I spotted a fly in one of the hunks of beef. She put the spoon to my mouth, "Eat (_Ешьте_),"

"WHAT DO YOU TAKE ME FOR, HUMAN!?" I struck her to the floor with one arm and split the soup all over the floor. Looking at her attire, the room I was staying in, even the sewage system—it wouldn't surprise me if this was what Praskovya would call a "hardy, full meal", but I am CELL, the perfect warrior—and I deserve better than that disgusting smudge. She picked up the bowl and spoons, glanced back at me, "I see you're not hungry (_Я вижу, вы не голодны_). Have a good rest, Cell. _(хорошо отдохнуть, Cell)_."

"Praskovya," I sighed. I couldn't believe that I was bringing myself to say this, "Forgive me (_Прости меня_)." She turned back and her wrinkles shone on her candle-lit smile. A scar from my strike was visible on her left cheek. I suppose I still had some of my former strength, even with the absence of my _ki_ abilities. She dismissed it and left quickly.

Praskovya let her aged, swollen feet tread down the frostbitten church steps. She held onto a railing as she gazed at the Orthodox-cross-topped dome. The bells struck at break of noon, when mass finally ended, and the crowds split out like milk out of a broken glass.

"Praskovya!" a youthful voice boomed—a dirt poor prostitute named Sonya. There was so much filth on her face from living under the bridges that sometimes all you could make out was the strands of blond hair and the eyes. They had met on occasion, though a series of events as well as mutual relationships, and Sonya went to the same church. She grabbed a hold of Praskovya's hand to help her down, "You're too old to venture out on your own! (_Ты слишком стар, чтобы решиться по своему усмотрению_.) What were you thinking—_(О чем вы думали-)_," 

Sonya peered at the mark that I left on Praskovya's left cheek, mostly covered by her headdress. The young Sonya was in complete shock, "Who did this!? (_Кто сделал это?!_)

"Don't worry about it, Sonya. (_Не беспокойтесь об этом, Соню._)" Praskovya smiled, "I fell down some stairs while doing some laundry. (_Я упал вниз по лестницам то время как я занимался прачечную._)"

"You shouldn't be living independently at your age. (_Вы не должны жить самостоятельно в вашем возрасте._)" Sonya protested, "Can I move in? (_Я могу приблизиться?)_"

"You would have to share a room. (_Вы должны были бы жить в комнате_.)" Praskovya said.

"That's okay. (_Тхатьс окай_)," Sonya smiled.

A blond-haired young woman in a tattered dress with frostbitten feet stood before me with a small bag of possessions. She smelt of liquor and wastewater. She had half of her teeth left and a layer of filth covering her entire face. Her eyes widened and she was struck speechless at first,

"PRASKOVYA!" She called in panic. The old woman came up with a mob and bucket.

"WHAT!? (_Как_)!?" Praskovya asked as Sonya pointed at me and trembled in fear.

"What is this thing!? (_Что это такое?_)" Sonya asked.

"Your new roommate (_Ваш новый сосед по комнате_)." Praskovya answered.

**~Chapter 1 end**

**Well, that's the first chapter. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE R&R! **

**Also, what do you think of the Cyrillic (Russian writing) next to the English? Do you like it? Do think its distracting? Do you think its unique? Tell me what you think! **


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